In my ongoing attempt to self-sabotage my own writing, I've started Kreet Life 3 over here without any fanfare or notification. Thanks to shadowblah for advising me to post this!

Kreet Life 3

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Anguish and despair rolled over her like a tangible wave of coldness. She shivered underneath them far more than the simple coolness of the air around her. How long she stayed lost in that oblivion she didn’t know. But eventually she recognized that there were moments when it ebbed and flowed. Very slowly she allowed light into her soul again. But she came out bitter.

She found herself rocking on her knees and she stopped chanting the names of her family. Around her sat two male kobolds. They were rocking on their knees as she had been doing. As the white-noise faded from her ears, she heard they were repeating the names as well.

“Kallith. Grass. Kalindruh. Nieyt. Kallith. Grass. Kalindruh. Nieyt.”

Once she would have smiled at their mimicry. Now she just thought it pathetic and annoying. They had no idea what they were saying.

“Shut up,” she said, scowling.

Both looked up, and their eager young faces annoyed her even more.

“You speak?” one asked in kobold.

Another annoyance. She switched to kobold.

“Shut up,” she repeated.

“Mysterious woman awakens?”

Another shiver of remembrance shook her. Oh, this was going to be hard. So, so hard.

One of them came to her and picked up a cloth from around her feet and put it over her back and shoulders. It felt familiar, and she realized they had done this before repeatedly - but she had thrown it off in her grief and anger.

“Well,” she thought, “If you wanted to be dead you could have stayed there. You chose to come back here, didn’t you? They’re trying to be kind. They don’t deserve your wrath.”

She looked around and stood up, drawing a deep breath of resignation. Her knees protested, and it was clear she had been here for some time. She may never see her family again, but staying down here was only a way of guaranteeing that. She had been given a chance to live again. A chance few, if any, kobolds had been given before.

She tried to release her anger at the gods. She knew instinctively that they hadn’t caused the fire - but it would have been so damn easy for them to stop it.

“But no, you couldn’t lift a goddamn finger? Did you take Night too? But you didn’t leave him a goddamn jewel, did you? Fuck you Eilistraee. Fuck you Pelor, and fuck your powers. You can blind a giant spider, but you can’t put out a spark? Well to hell with the lot of you! I’m doing this one on my own!”

Kreet Life 3